Making connections on LinkedIn can be an important part of building your professional network and increasing your visibility and reach. However, there are limits to how many connections you can make in a day on LinkedIn in order to prevent spammy behavior. In this article, we’ll look at the factors that determine your daily connection limits and provide tips for making the most of your daily connections.
What are LinkedIn’s daily connection limits?
LinkedIn limits the number of connection requests you can send each day to maintain quality and prevent spammy behavior. The exact number of daily connections allowed depends on your account status:
Basic Accounts
If you have a basic, free LinkedIn account, you are limited to sending only 15 connection requests per day. This is to prevent basic users from spamming others with connection invites.
Premium Accounts
If you upgrade to a premium LinkedIn account, either Premium Career or Sales Navigator, your daily connection limit increases to 30 per day. The increase is in recognition of the expanded network needs of premium users.
Highly Connected Accounts
For users who already have 500+ connections, the daily limit increases further to 35 per day. LinkedIn determines you may need additional relationship-building flexibility at this level of connection.
Tips for Maximizing Daily LinkedIn Connections
While LinkedIn’s daily limits restrict how fast you can grow your network, there are some tips and best practices to optimize your daily connecting capacity:
1. Prioritize valuable connections
Since you can only connect to a finite number of new people each day, make sure those connection requests are going to people you truly want in your network – close contacts, prospects, industry experts, etc. Avoid spraying invitations broadly or randomly.
2. Personalize invitation notes
Personalized invitation notes can boost your connection acceptance rate by showing you actually took time to view someone’s profile and are interested in them specifically. Generic notes are more likely to be ignored.
3. Follow up on ignored requests
If your invitation expires without a response, you can re-send the request or send the person an InMail to follow up and encourage them to connect. Persistence pays off.
4. Monitor your daily limits
Pay attention to how many invites you have remaining each day so you don’t exceed your limit. Connecting over the limit can result in having your account flagged by LinkedIn.
5. Use LinkedIn Premium tools
Upgrading to Premium provides more search filters to find quality prospects and lets you view more profiles to evaluate possible connections.
6. Engage with your network
Commenting on posts and interacting with your connections can prompt reciprocal interest and inspire them to connect you with valuable new contacts through introductions.
7. Avoid automated tools or bots
While automation can be tempting to speed up connecting, be wary. LinkedIn frowns on automated connection behaviors and violating their limits. Manual relationship-building is best.
How Many Pending Invites Can You Have?
In addition to daily sending limits, LinkedIn also places a cap on the total number of pending connection invitations you can have outstanding at one time:
- Basic members: Max 100 pending invites
- Premium members: Max 150 pending invites
- Highly connected members: Max 200 pending invites
Monitoring your pending invites is important to stay under these thresholds. If you go over the limit, you won’t be able to send further connection requests until pending ones are addressed.
Connection Request Acceptance Rates
While LinkedIn’s daily limits control the number of invitations you can send, your connection acceptance rate will also impact the growth of your network. Acceptance rates vary based on:
1. Industry norms
Some sectors, like tech, have adopted an open networking culture with high connection rates. Other industries can be more cautious in connecting professionally.
2. Seniority
More senior professionals often vet connections carefully, leading to lower acceptance rates. Junior staff may connect more freely to build visibility.
3. Location
Cultural norms in different countries impact networking openness. Acceptance rates tend to be higher in the U.S. vs. Europe, for example.
4. Recent activity
If you and the recipient have interacted recently, your request is more likely to be accepted than random invites.
5. Strength of relationship
2nd degree connections or those you know well have higher acceptance rates than invites to strangers or vague acquaintances.
| Connection Type | Estimated Acceptance Rate |
|---|---|
| Direct contacts you know well | 70-85% |
| 2nd degree connections | 50-65% |
| Industry colleagues you’ve met at events | 40-60% |
| Random professionals in your industry | 15-30% |
Other Ways to Grow Your LinkedIn Network
While your daily connection limits control the speed of directly expanding your network, there are other engagement tactics on LinkedIn to indirectly build relationships and increase your visibility:
Post Valuable Updates
Sharing your expertise and perspectives through posts and articles allows you to organically connect with those interested in your content.
Comment on Posts
Engaging with others’ content and joining conversations can lead to new relationship-building interactions.
Join Industry Groups
Participating in niche professional groups enables you to connect with like-minded members.
Follow Companies
Following key companies you want to work with or do business with makes it easier to connect with their employees.
Conclusion
While LinkedIn’s daily connection limits force you to be more selective and relationship-focused in how you grow your network, there are many strategies to optimize your daily capacity. By combining prudent use of your direct connects, engaging content sharing, and group participation, you can build an impactful professional community on LinkedIn over time. The key is persistently expanding your visibility and value on the platform through high-quality interactions and relationships. With focus and patience, you can maximize LinkedIn’s limits to grow your network each day in a genuine, non-spammy manner.
The ability to connect with the right people is critical, but avoid simply collecting connections. Each new addition should bring you closer to achieving your professional goals through meaningful engagement. If you can do that consistently within the bounds of LinkedIn’s limits, your network will become not just larger, but stronger.
